Dr Changu Mannathoko

Dr Changu Mannathoko is a Managing Partner and Director of Training at Joint Minds Consult. She is a national of Botswana. She has a BA and a Concurrent Certificate of Education (CCE) from the University of Botswana and Swaziland as well as an M.Ed. from the University of Botswana . She holds a PhD (Education) from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Work History

Dr Mannathoko is an Educator with 30 years’ experience and expertise in Education. She started as a secondary school teacher; engaged in Teacher Training before being appointed by the University of Botswana in the Faculty of Education, where she taught for fourteen (14) years. She designed and taught education courses at diploma, degree and masters levels.

Dr Mannathoko has expertise and experience in facilitation of gender issues. She provided leadership in the establishment of gender policies at the University in her capacity as the chair of the Gender Policy and Programme Committee and also as chairperson of the Gender and Education Committee.

She was the first Director of the regional course on Gender and Development in Southern Africa. Dr Mannathoko worked within UNICEF, both at regional and Headquarters in New York, for sixteen years .

Dr Mannathoko has been a Regional Education Advisor for Eastern, and Southern Africa (ESAR), based in Nairobi, Kenya. She had oversight over 21 countries, responsible for the coordination, technical support, monitoring and documenting of the regional education programme. She engaged governments in the region in policy advocacy with regard to child rights. Participated in education sector planning and sector reviews to advocate for the mainstreaming of child rights and gender equity into national sector plans and budgets.

She further provided technical support in the areas of education, gender and development and rights-based programming, in all these countries. She managed and supervised, work teams-both within and outside UNICEF, and managed diverse functional groups of senior professional and technical staff.

UNICEF then transferred her to New York headquarters as a Senior Education Advisor. There she was part of a team that guided and coordinated education programmes at a global level. Dr Mannathoko provides leadership in efforts of scaling up the quality of interventions and holistic models in child friendly schools approach through her technical expertise. These aproaches assisted countries world-wide transform their education systems to be more inclusive, equitable and quality oriented. The focus on accelerating progress on girls’ education facilitated her provision of leadership on life skills education, the impact of HIV and AIDS in the education sector and the education, safety and protection of girls and out of school children.

She retired from UNICEF the last quarter of 2016.

Research and Publications

The areas of research and publications are: gender and education, gender and development; teacher education; education research environments and educational leadership. She researched in these areas for the governments of Botswana, South Africa and UNICEF. Her publications cover the themes of gender and education, teacher education and social studies.